Republicans: The He Could Phenomenon

Nationwide polls showed Barry Goldwater
trailing Lyndon Johnson by nearly 2 to 1. Bitter Republican moderates
continued to shy away from Goldwater's candidacy. Civil rights leaders
denounced him and the Ku Klux Klan endorsed him. Reinhold Niebuhr's
Protestant magazine, Christianity and Crisis, concluded that Barry's
views were "diametrically opposed" to the stand of the three major U.S.
faiths on questions of international relations, civil rights and
economic policy. And Chicago's Second City satirists were breaking up
audiences with the gag: "Question: What's the latest elephant joke?
Answer: Barry Goldwater."